CH137 To town, and back and toy-ship making.
A familiar blacksmith came out of the lean-to that the people with metal-working classes had set up in the dock area. What was his name?
“Magical girl Alex.” The man looked at the trailer with the tons of the odd ore. “You’ve been busy.”
“Hi, I uh, brought something that could be smelted.” Alex struggled to remember the guy’s name. Surely it wasn’t too hard, something that starts with a . . . B?
“Brin.” The smith offered a knowing smirk, sensing Alex’s plight. “Don’t worry, I’ve been told I’m forgettable. Although. . . “ He patted the ore thoughtfully. “This? This isn’t forgettable.”
Alex let out a relieved laugh, breaking the awkward tension. “Brin, yeah I remember now. We came across this ore while fighting ice demons. I was hoping you’d or someone around here would know what to do.”
Brin grinned widely. “This is not something I’ve worked with before,” he admitted, pulling a chunk of the ore and turning it over in his callused hands. “But we don’t have class skills for nothing.”
“Do you have the stuff here to smelt it?” Alex watched him test the weight in his hand and inspect the serpentine pattern in the ore.
Brin rubbed his chin and set the rock back down. “We can fire up the forge and try. As you can see, the masons helped us throw this place together rather quickly. There was a crude bloomery before and that was it.”
Alex winced, it was her idea to try to build a bloomery and it didn’t really produce much pig iron, mostly because they didn’t know how to find iron rich rocks. “Yeah, what a poorly executed idea…” The black-haired girl laughed awkwardly.
Brin shrugged. “You mean to leave it here?”
Alex nodded. “Yes please. If we can get some more resources to work with then I think that would help put us in a better place for future conflicts.”
“You are right.” Brin pointed at a pile of rusty scrap metal. “We’ve been getting some scrap from places we can but no one is quite high enough level to make more with less. Back in the county I only had about enough work for one day a week. It was sorta depressing, the fact that we didn’t have much to eat didn’t help either.”
“So things are better here then?” Alex inspected the area, some people were working on anvils and fires kept going with wood and charcoal. “I’ve heard that there is conflict with different groups.”
Brin nodded. “Yeah, though some of that fixed itself.” He pointed north. “The barbarians came and butted heads with their rivals. But they wanted food for their tribes. They went to just take it and leave but the nymphs didn’t like that, said they had to contribute if they took. Someone who could preserve food with a skill would do that enough to fill their wagons, then again repeat and put it back into the storehouse. Others stocked up, then said that they were going to help patrol for demons. They went off into the woods.”
“How does that work?” Alex thought that answer sounded suspicious. “The demons won’t enter the forest undetected because of the nymphs.”
“Maybe they thought they were being sneaky.” Brin shrugged. “They could actually be hunting demons though. How else are people with combat classes supposed to level up nowadays.”
“Not a big expert on foundry work.” Alex looked around, trying to get an eye for the progress in the area. “How long do you think it’ll take to refine the metal?”
“This metal?” Brin glanced at the pile. “Not exactly sure, this is the first time I’ve heard of the palladium stuff. If it is like iron or copper then we could make a bloom in a day then forge it into an ingot the next day.”
“Another thing,” the magical girl apparently shamelessly asked. “How is the armor going along?”
“I got that right here.” The blacksmith led Alex to a dummy that had a shining helmet on it. There was an awful lot of fabric padding under it. “The measurements that I got were a little weird. Are you planning to armor someone that is starving? If they are that skinny then just feeding them properly for a while might be prudent.”
Alex inspected the partially completed set of full plate. It glimmered with that silver sheen. “I thought you didn’t have enough iron to make a set of armor?”
“About that.” Brin pointed to a bunch of the rusted scrap that other people were working on. “Everyone’s been pitching in and salvaging what they could from the river. We even got some more nails going to help the carpenters. That one girl has been heading out, teaching people how to swim to salvage stuff to keep the forges going.”
“That’s good.” Alex clapped. “When this is done please put it in Ki’s office. The dimensions are fine.”
“Thanks for letting us advance our classes.” Brin bowed slightly. “Even the carpenters are taking risks making small boats without a shipwright. Hopefully we’ll find a shipwright.”
Alex looked at the pile of rusted parts again. “If anyone can create iron cables that would be a bit of a help. I’ve been using string for some pulleys and that works, but in my original dolls they don’t have any moving parts that aren't metal.”
“I’ll see what we can do.” Brin looked over the stuff in the lean-to, considering possible ways to make metal cable. “I’m guessing you want it really thin.”
Alex nodded. “Thanks, it is not super important. It would just be nice to have a bit of a stockpile in case it is needed.”
Alex bid farewell and made her way down to the waterfront. There, she observed people utilizing saws and other woodworking tools to assemble smaller boats. While she had reservations about their seaworthiness in open water, she recognized the wisdom of having an escape plan in case of an emergency.
After conversing with a few individuals, Alex returned to the adventurer's guild. She informed the skeletal closet dweller about the ice demons, but the skeleton remained motionless and silent. Oh well, the self-destructive plow wielder could use a break. Hopefully he will get some rest and feel better. In a few days she could dress him up like a doll as a princely knight in shining armor. Alex then changed into the plumbing outfit, and departed for the island, via the portal pipe in the basement to resume her work on the clockwork toy ship.
Hopping out of the other side of the portal, Alex took some time to speak with Bob and Martha. She let them know the news in the town, that some of the tribal peoples have packed up and left and are wandering around the forest.
“If anything gets too risky.” Bob presented their emergency plan. “We’ll go take shelter in the grotto shrine.”
“Kaide let us know before she had to go to sleep that it’d be a good place to hide.” Martha added. “Attacking places where someone can request a class from the gods is inviting divine punishment from that deity.”
“How does that work if someone is a criminal and just hides out in the temple?” Alex thought some of the ways things worked on Terre were a little weird.
“Not sure.” Bob shrugged. “There could be a really long standoff, or they could come in and apprehend the person…perhaps carefully? Try not to damage anything or something like that.”
“Politely ask permission?” Martha joined the speculation.
Alex tried not to chuckle. They were just being silly about what could be a fairly dangerous situation.
After saying farewell, Bob gave a final warning. “Winter is just around the corner. Best to finish up and be ready to spend the next few months indoors hunkering down.”
The farming couple pressed Alex to stay for dinner, they had some heartfelt farewells and Alex went back into the walled area filled with portal pipes and a leafless apple tree. A shudder ran through Alex at the thought of being asleep for a whole season. She held the lock of green hair that complemented her long black hair. It was a bit of a reminder of what could have been.
With a splash, Alex fell out of the pipe, got dumped into the cold water of the under-construction castle.
With her feather duster in hand, Alex climbed out, dusted herself off, leaving her dry and headed out.
Workers had begun installing the roofing, utilizing metal beams for a peaked structure, and cone-shaped roofs for the spires. Instead of wooden shingles, they used thatch, tied quickly to the beams with string, giving the roof a rustic appearance. Alex considered a future replacement for the roof, pondering the weight of 20,000 square feet of tiles and its potential impact on the island's altitude, similar to a previous incident with a trailer load of dense ore.
Inside, Alex observed stairs, walls, and several fireplaces. On the top floor, an alcove was set up as a shrine dedicated to Luna, with pink curtains and other cute decorations awaiting placement to complete the design.
Alex considered doing some stuff right now, but she was wearing the plumbing outfit, so if the decorations didn’t involve pipes they she should probably get changed first. Also, it was dark out so she should probably head to the carriage, meet up with Fufi and get some sleep.
The next day, Alex woke up, made some tea and breakfast in the carriage and went back to mucking around with tiny clockwork mechanisms for the toy boat she had been plucking away at for some time.
“Good Morning.” Fufi beamed after she had taken her bird bath. “You looked tired yesterday so I decided to let you sleep.”
“I am okay.” Alex gave Fufi a freshly poured cup of tea. “Just a little worried I’m screwing everything up.”
“Don’t worry.” Fufi didn’t miss a beat. “Follow your heart and things will work out.”
Alex wasn’t sure about that. But one step at a time right?
After breakfast, the magical girl returned to the shop, resuming her work on the toy boat's clockwork mechanisms. While she had achieved some functionality, the boat remained a complex challenge where one component could easily interfere with another. For instance, deploying the balloon could cause it to snag on the sails if the boom was improperly positioned. Similarly, the internal gearboxes were prone to tangles if lines weren't neatly spooled or had too much slack. Alex often had to consult her original drawings, occasionally even starting over on certain sections.
Days bled into weeks, but through persistent trial and error, they finally brought the toy to a satisfactory state. Though improvements were always possible, pursuing perfection was a trap, because the very act of getting something to work revealed ways it could be done even better.
Alex’s phone rang out.
[Toymaking has reached level 5]
She scrolled through the app to check her character sheet.
Name: Alex Parker
Class: Magical Girl
Level: 5
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Strength: 11
Constitution: 9
Dexterity: 17
Intelligence: 11
Cuteness: 24
Skills:
Cleaning: 3
Cooking: 2
Dancing: 2
Tailoring: 4
Toymaking: 5
Feats: Empower Doll
Crafting: Force Imbuement
Possess Doll
Spells: Animate Doll
Magical Girl Transformation
Lesser Grow Plants
Traits: Mental Resistance: 4
“Finally finished.” Alex proudly patted the toy boat. “And I got a skill increase for toy making. It is now my highest skill.”
“Good Job!” Fufi praised. “Your toys will only get better from here on out.”
“I hope so.” Alex eyed the ship with the set of tiny doll crew like the first toy ship. In fact most of the dolls were salvaged sailor dolls from the ship that they gave to the shipwright at the capital. One of the dolls was taken, she still felt bitter about that and wanted to rescue the doll, but other than that there were more than enough dolls to crew the ship.
Another problem was the size. Alex felt like her skill struggled with things as they got bigger. The toy ship was about 1/10 the size of the clipper ship it was based off of. But the main 3 dolls from the dungeon were merumeru-sized. So Alex was way too big for the ship, and her combat dolls were like toddlers. And the sailor dolls were sized like action figures.